IMPERSONALITIES.

“HOLLOW” he cries and “hollow, hollow.” Mark how the creeping moon is yellow On the cold stones, enmeshing feet That are not soft, with blood not sweet. Though in the night one cry his Name The shuddering air shrinks from the aim; And failing eddies will not stir To let him through to Lucifer. What answers where no echoes fly? None where the moon looks balefully. Unheard, far-off “O hollow, hollow” The satyr crieth to his fellow.

IT may be raining now, that first warm rain That melts the heart of earth beneath the snows, Our Northland snows (she feels the swimmer’s pain Who catches breath, half-drowned, when the blood flows Shuddering back into the frozen vein). And did ye think I should not come again At the long last in spring-time with the rain? Or may be there is singing in the air At building-time where the tall windy trees, By sap and young leaves hurt, can hardly bear The spring’s reiterated urgencies That at the woods with actual fingers tear. And did ye, when these songs are everywhere, Of Balder, who first taught them song, despair? Or it may be where once my altar stood And where my worshipped name in prayer ascended, Blue, like a trumpet, in the solitude Harebells, that ring before the winter’s ended, Have with the wind my litanies renewed. Did ye forget (alas! that any could) That I, the god of flowers, found these good? And may be where the dog-rose remedies With her wild flush the hedge, and spring begins, Born of all these there trembles the first kiss That from Valhalla brings the Paladins And ladies, who for all the immortal bliss Of heaven, have no joy as sharp as this. Did ye not know in your own memories That where are love and spring there Balder is? It may be raining now, that first warm rain That melts the heart of earth beneath the snows, Our Northland snows (she feels the swimmer’s pain Who catches breath, half-drowned, when the blood flows Shuddering back into the frozen vein). And did ye think I should not come again At the long last in spring-time with the rain?

SO great a lady, so dear is she, Princess in heaven, but mother to me! When little Jesus lay in her arm It was enough for him that he was warm. When the small head at her bosom did nod Did she remember that He was the God? Or when she sang to Him low in His ear, Did she say “Master” or did she sob “Dear”? Was it the star on the manger that shone Crowned her an empress, or was it her Son? So great a lady to lie in a stall— But only a mother (she thought) after all. So great a lady, so dear is she, Princess in heaven! but who does not see How against Godhead, in spite of the Cross, She holds to her bosom her Jesus that was?

WHEN there is no more sea and no more sailing Will God go vintaging the wine-dark seas, Reaping gold apples of the storm and trailing To harvest home the lost Hesperides? Will God, the gates that guard the river breaking, Annul the blinding gesture of the sword, And find the Tree, all other dreams forsaking, Whose apples are the knowledge of the Lord? Forsaking dreams—forgiveness and salvation, Sins that were needless needlessly forgiven, Hell where he knew vicarious damnation And ghosts of rapture in a ghost of heaven? No longer from self-knowledge then exempted Shall God the apple tasting Eve repeat Thus altered, saying, “By the devil tempted Through all these years I could and did not eat.” Thus at the last shall Man and Maker pardon Eve’s ancient wrong, seeing that, though He cursed, Knowledge, alone of those who used the Garden God was afraid of apples from the first. Thereafter as it was in the beginning, Before the spirit moved upon the deep, There shall be no more sea and no more sinning And God will share with his beloved sleep.

THOUGH the world tumble tier by tier, Down, down the broken galleries, By day the sun would shine as clear By night the moon would ride her seas. Though man and all was meant by men Upon the empty air were spent, Irrevocably Charles’s Wain Would swing across the firmament. So large they are and cool the skies; God’s frozen breath in dreams, or worse: Beautiful unsupported lies That simulate a universe.

YOU have made the golden journey. Samarkand Is all about you, Flecker, and where you lie How youth and her beauty perish in the sand They are singing in the caravanserai.

WHO died for love, we use to nourish hate: Who was all tenderness, our hearts to harden; And who of mercy had the high estate By us escheated of her right of pardon.

THIS little sleeper, who was overtaken By death, as one child overtakes another, Dreams by his side all night and will not waken Till the dawn comes in heaven with his mother.

“What sword is left?” sighs England. Answer her (For you must answer) “This—Excalibur.”

THAT is the sword of England. Arthur drew The blade at that last battle when he failed, (Shadow among the shadows, who prevailed Victorious in disaster). Harold knew Its point in his heart at Hastings, and it flew Out of the scabbard when King Richard sailed And did not reach Jerusalem. It wailed In the false hand that on the scaffold slew Charles, and proud Balliol saw the light on it Shining for Ridley through the flame; was seen When Mary, Queen of Scotland, was a queen On earth no longer, and when William Pitt “England! O how I leave thee,” failing cried, The sword, the sword, was with him when he died.

THE line at Mons were privy to the blade, When God and England seemed together lost, And riding by the far Pacific coast Admiral Cradock took its accolade. These are its victories—to be afraid, To hear thin bugles sounding “The Last Post,” Until the blood creeps noiseless as a ghost And cold, and all we cherished is betrayed. That is the sword’s way. Those who lose shall have; And only those who in defeat have known The bitterness of death, and stood alone In darkness, shall have worship in the grave. Swordsman, go into battle, and record How one more English knight has found his sword!

TO-DAY you’ll find by field and ditch The small invasion of the vetch: And where they sleep rest-harrow will Follow upon the daffodil. These in their soft disordered ranks Withstand and overcome the Tanks; And the small unconsidered grass Cries to the gunner “On ne passe.” The corn outlasts the bayonet, Whose blades no blood nor rust can fret, Or only the immortal rust Of poppies failing in their thrust. The line these hold no force can break, Nor their platoons advancing shake, Whose wide offensive wave on wave Doth make a garden of a grave. These with the singing lark conspire To veil with loveliness the wire, While he ascending cleans the stain In heaven of the aeroplane. These in the fields and open sky Reverse the errors of Versailles, Who with a natural increase From year to year establish peace. For all the living these will cloak The things they spoiled, the hearts they broke; And where these heal the earth will be For all the dead indemnity.

WHEN Kew found spring, and we found Kew, Gold was the London that we knew— The gold of gold whose metal is As yellow as the primroses. London’s Lord Mayor, Dick Whittington, In heaven heard the carillon “Turn again;” London after all Is paved with gold by Chiswick Mall. But afterwards the town was sold To a mad alchemist for gold, Who used his art to change, instead Of lead to gold, the gold to lead. If where the streets to Hampstead twist You meet a doting alchemist Seeking lost gold, refuse him pity; He changed us when he changed the city!

WHAT Orpheus whistled for Eurydice (While all the shades were silent, achingly Holding out hands, and hands stretched evermore In a vain longing for the further shore). The blue smoke floats Lazily in the dawn above the white Flat roof you knew, and somewhere out of sight A child is singing the old Linus song, Sweeter because the baby voice goes wrong —The little goatherd calling to her goats. There’s a small hill On which the olive trees you used to call Athene’s little sisters, now grown tall, Watch all day long the coming of the child, And you’ll remember how the brook, else wild, About these pastures suddenly grows still. There’s such a peace, Save where a wandering beast shakes on its bell, You’d almost think the trees had learned a spell From their wise sister (or from you) to bless A baby frightened of the loneliness, Tending her herd and waiting by the trees. Ah! certainly There are two things are stronger than the fates— A lover’s song in Hell, a child that waits. The shadows lengthen. Ere the night descend On earth, O sweetheart, Mother, friend Win out of Hell! Return Eurydice!

WHAT is there left? The wind makes answer “I saw the green leaves grow brown and fall; I danced with the shadows, I the dancer Among bare branches. For I,” he saith, “Hear the thin music whistle and call, Music, horn-music, the music of death.” “There stands at the edge of the wood the player Dark in the darkness, but I have seen, Ere my feet were lifted, the branches stir. Darker than dark, than light more fair, Before I have come he slips between; But I, the dancer,” wind saith, “do not care.” “The leaves have fallen and who shall discover What there is left in the blackened tree? And who will know when the years are over, Among bare branches if I,” wind saith, “Dance where the shadows and music be, Music, horn-music, the music of death?”

SUPPOSE I gave you what my heart has given— A door to dreams, a little road to heaven. Would you pass through the door, my dreams forgetting, And turn the corner when my sun is setting? So I should only have (as I have only) Your hair remembered, eyes that left me lonely, A mouth as cold as roses, and the kiss Of Gabriel, sealing love’s defeat with this!

CALL it an age, call it a day, What’s in the world with love away? The sun a round and golden ghost, The moon the shadow he has lost; And spring herself for all her green The bare and brown a pause between. Call it an age, call it a day, When love is gone, what’s there to say? Opal or gold, amber or gray, What’s in the world with love away? Opal a pool of changeling fires, Where the gold angel stirs desires That do not heal Bethesda way But only turn the amber gray. Call it an age, call it a day, When love is gone, what’s there to say? Call it a dream, call it a play, What’s in the world with love away? With love away can a man clamber To heaven by a rope of amber? Or can an opal stretch a wire To lead a girl to her desire? Amber and opal—but I remember Love that was better than opal or amber. Call it an age, call it a day, What’s in the world with love away?

AFTER the fighting Comes not sudden peace, but weariness; A gloom no lighting Of little lamps of jest or speech unravels, But for the brain and body endless travels, Twisting and turning like the lovers hurled For punishment athwart the underworld, Twisting and turning and no respite sighting. After the living Comes not relief, but a grey level gloom, When the heart beats as in a padded room With wild shapes moving— Silence imploring and from silence flying, Praying to life and all athirst for dying. Tearing lost dreams and for the torn dreams weeping, Fearing to wake, tumultuously sleeping. . . . . . . Death’s a poor leech with worn-out simples striving To heal in vain the malady of living.

WHEN the stir and the movement are over, When you that had the lightness of a wind Or the poise of some swift bird Burn no longer in any man’s mind, And your voice in no man’s heart is heard, Who in the world will dare to be a lover? Would any being hurt in the night be crying “O God! her little mouth that with a kiss Drank all a man; and—God! her weaving fingers!” Would any of another dare say this? Will there be other women, other singers? I wish with you and me love might be dying.

YOU have the way of a blossom, Cold petal with April green, And you melt the heart in the bosom As your beauty enters in. I will fold my hands together, Asking of God for you Always in April weather Cold petal and colder dew.

ALL that I know of Cambridge— The colleges and that indulgent air Of a great gentleman who is content That lesser men should make experiment With life, for which he does not vastly care— Is that you tell me you were happy there. All that I’ll say of Cambridge— Though in her courts Apollo lose the art Of immortality to find it where Rupert was used to walk at Grantchester— Is that for me Cambridge is but a part Of greater beauties than inform your heart.

THE sun is shining in the August weather In the little room and, I suppose, Gilding the painted parrot on the wall, The truckle-bed, the table and the rose Of the poor carpet that we bought together. And from the street the muted voices call As though we saw, as though we heard it all.

LET it be written down, while still the wound Festers and there is horror in the world At what was done and suffered, while unfurled The wings of death are dark upon the ground. Let it be written “Death we have not found The worst, though death is evil, nor the curled Fangs of disease, nor yet to ruin hurled The tracery of old cities, when no sound Is in their broken streets. But there’s an ape Out of the slime into the spirit creeping, That twists mankind back, back into the shape That mumbles carrion. Here’s the cause for weeping. Prognathous chin, slant forehead, eyes that rust As their flame dies and smoulders into lust.”

WHY should I care for love? The urgent rose— What does she promise the heart and what fulfill? “Delight, delight” she whispers, and she goes ... But love the rose outbidding is falser still. Why should I care for love? But hush, oh hush! What bird is singing in the dawn “Forget The spring,” and, you,—have you forgotten, thrush?... But love the thrush outsinging is falser yet. Why should I care for love? Love does not care Whether you care or do not care, says she! But ask your lips how the rose smells in my hair, If the thrush beats at my heart—here—Anthony!

IN your black hair are there not nightingales Singing in the dark, and when you let it down Is there no stir in the air of tiniest sails That ever on lost seas of song were blown? In your black hair the heart of Hyacinth Laments the daylight he shall see no more, And flowers are red as in the labyrinth The red eyes of the crazy Minotaur. In your black hair, Medusa, there are snakes That twine themselves about Laocoon, How soft, how warm! and how the poor heart breaks Before they strike and turn it into stone.

TRUTH is the fourth dimension. By her grace Motion, the idiot of time and space, Grows reasonable, so that the spirit sees Behind the aimless drag of categories The moving centuries, whose gestures mirror And dissipate the cloudy shapes of error. O there’s the long way back, the dawns that scatter Like startled birds about the spirit, and chatter Of animal voices seeking lucid speech In colonies of darkness. Truth can stretch, Though motionless, and set a hatchet blazing A path through the jungle where an ape is gazing At the edge of a little light, with dripping muzzle, Black writhing palms, and eyes a drowsy puzzle Of fears and beastlike hopes. Then the light reaches His pelt and holds him fast. In vain he snatches At the sheltering trees, in vain the leafy dance Down the long avenues of ignorance. Knowledge and the pain of knowledge fly beside him, And, where the leaves are darkest, clutch and ride him Until he sloughs the shape of beast and can Stand in the dawn upon his feet a man. But the jungle is not cleared, and still the shapes Of time and space and error move like apes.

WITH this golden pencil—write “Written words must serve for sight. For the broken lights that stirred Wedded eyes the complete word. Written words the trembling nerve Of the lover’s ear must serve. Laughter’s done and tears are over— Written words, instead, my lover. Words that have no scent must tell How the secret jonquils smell In your hair, and words protest There are jonquils at your breast. Written words the gift must waste, When the very air hath taste Of your lip, the sweets that part Love’s soft mouth and reach the heart. Separable these await For the fifth to consummate, That are nothing, each alone, But all heaven joined in one. This, being lost, had hurt too much, Here are words instead of touch.” Therefore write and break the lead “Love that was alive is dead.”

IF any ask, O tell them that the moon Was lit in heaven when Queen Ashtaroth Beat at her lamp and fell upon the swoon Of love that soars in fire to fall a moth. If any ask, O tell them that for this Priam’s great city of Troy was sacrificed, For love that is as bitter as the kiss Of Judas the Iscariot, slaying Christ. If any ask, O tell them it is well, Though love comes like the swallow and flies as soon: Who has not found his heaven in the Hell Of love unsatisfied beneath the moon?

THE crowder’s tune Down a street in Babylon— His fiddle to the moon With notes like stars that one by one Glittered upon the empty street, Glittered and laughed and went (But there was a lisp of ghostly feet) To build a firmament. “Who walks by night in Babylon? ‘I,’ said a lady, ‘because Of the wonderful thing I was, And the beautiful things all done, I walk in Babylon.’ Who seeks for a lady by night? ‘I,’ said a king, ‘My throne Is empty in Babylon. She fled from the light to the light, I seek for a lady by night.’ Who calls by night in Babylon? ‘They,’ answered love, ‘Yes over and over She calls to her God, but he to his lover, And each of them walks by night alone, And they will not meet in Babylon.’” The crowder played His little tune, almost As though he were afraid Of some forgotten ghost Awakening, And crying on the string Of what was lost And would not come Again. He feared in vain. For the ghost, the ghost is dumb Of love that is past over, And the merciless laughter of the moon Pursues the ghostly lover, Till in the empty street There’s an end of the lisp of feet, And the crowder breaks his fiddle and the tune, And all the stars are gone In Babylon.

PAST Buckhurst Hill the motor-bus Takes and shakes the three of us. When first we went, there were but two In Epping Forest, I and you. That summer as I understand A forester from fairyland Set a notice up, “No road,” By the ways our feet had trod. No one came and no one knew, When the spring returned and blue Flowers burned, how deep behind Burned the blossoms of the mind. No one guessed and no one heard How beyond the singing bird, Some one sang in solitude In the wood within the wood. No one watched the years go by (Not even you, not even I), In the wood alone apart Green and waiting in the heart. Till last week the forester Heard a little footstep stir, Took his notice down and smiled At the coming of a child. Conquering the solitude A child is laughing in the wood. Past Buckhurst Hill the motor-bus Takes us back the three of us.